The Flood

On Friday, August 28th, I went to work at my usual time and made it by 7:20 am. At 8, Jen called me and said that our basement was taking on water. I immediately drove back home, thereby spending three hours on the road for 40 minutes worth of work.
By the time I got home, Jen and our neighbors had rounded up help. People were extracting our carpet in the finished part of the basement, while others were using shop vacs and squeegees to take care of the cement in our unfinished part. We ended up having to take up some of the carpet and dispose of the padding underneath.

Fortunately, our builder had enough foresight to install a french drain. Unfortunately, since it hadn't been used in the 2 1/2 years we've lived here, it filled up with sand. If it had been cleaned out and made to work properly, we could have avoided most of this mess. We did eventually get it cleaned out and put a sump pump down inside to drain the water.

Another stroke of luck was not having our bathroom finished in the basement. Since the trap for the bathtub needed to be lower than the foundation, we were able to uncap the pipe for the bathtub drain and let water flow down into our lift station (another sump pump).

It's now Monday, August 31st, and the french drain is still taking on water at a rate of 2 gallons every three minutes. The basement is mostly dry, with the only water in the trap for the bathtub drain, which still continues to flow down to our lift station.
Our neighbors, the Excells, had a much worse time dealing with this little mishap. Their basement was almost completely finished, and they took the brunt of the flood. A local disaster recovery company came to help take care of their basement, and initially they sucked out 875 gallons of water within 5 hours.
Jen and I would like to thank all those who banded together to help us and our neighbors, the Excells, during our time of need. We are really going to miss our neighbors and the area in general when we move to California.